Brian DeNeal: Eulogy for my dead car

Friday

Ten years and 246,000 miles later, my car has finally bitten the dust. I really never thought the day would come that I would turn the key and the engine would not turn over.

Ten years and 246,000 miles later, my car has finally bitten the dust. I really never thought the day would come that I would turn the key and the engine would not turn over.

I thought would drive it until the wheels fell off, but an engine rod blew first, reminding me of the Towns Van Zant lyrics, "'You don't need an engine to go downhill, and I can plainly see, that's the direction you're headed in,' and he handed me the key."

I bought 1998 Ford Escort shortly after taking this job almost 10 years ago when the water pump on my old one went bad. It was a new job, and a nearly new car with 36,000 miles on it.

Since then it has safely transported me over mountains, into deserts, through the prairies and to the seas.

It has hauled untold tons of equipment throughout the Midwest in my former life as a musician.

But then a tragic accident happened that changed my attitude about the station wagon. I had trusted it and babied it, changing the oil at least once a year and keeping it happy with strong tires when the wires began sticking out of the old ones.

The accident involved me braking sharply when the car in front of me unexpectedly stopped. I heard the screech of brakes behind me and felt the jar that knocked my glasses from my face and slammed my car into the rear bumper of the car ahead of me. That car happened to be hauling body parts to a hospital, and the driver was not happy to be delayed.

That was two years ago. The damage to the hatchback alone exceeded the value of the car, and the other guy's insurance only paid me a portion of the costs to repair the car, maintaining I shared fault in the accident. I could not pay the remainder and so I spent the $2,500 settlement on other things, a laptop, contact lenses and debts.

The car being totalled -- but driveable -- my attitude was mine was an indestructible tank, capable of delivering me wherever my whim took me. I drove through muddy forest roads, over snow so thick I had to use the bordering power lines to retain my sense of direction, through sludge and muck, over nails and through floodwater, and my car delivered me every time.

Almost. True, once I was stuck up in a rut in the woods after dark, but a couple of hours of work freed it. And there was that time it was hung in the ditch on my driveway during last year's ice storm. Then I blew a tire at midnight in Rudement.

But my confidence in the car never faltered even as the odometer crept into the stratosphere.

Last week's cold and my hubris of not maintaining the fluids turned out to be the car's undoing. I started it Saturday, the engine turned over, but then died. It would not start. I pumped the accelerator and black smoke belched from the exhaust. Not a good sign.

The sight of the car being pulled onto the tow truck made me emotional, much like taking a sick dog to the vet in the vain hope its life can be saved. But I feared the worst and was not surprised when the mechanic gave the news it needed a new engine to the tune of $2,900.

So now it's time to crunch the household budget and go searching for a new mode of transportation. Friends have been gentle, reminding me the troubled economic times could benefit me in finding a good deal and that encouragement helps, but I don't want to have to do it. I miss the sense of adventure I had knowing the car was in the winter of its life, but possessed an unbreakable will to get me where I needed to go. The car turned out to be mortal after all.

It will not be pleasant cleaning out the old car, almost like cleaning out the house of a deceased relative, but it must be done. I can't just keep driving downhill.

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